Book Image

Web Penetration Testing with Kali Linux - Third Edition

By : Gilberto Najera-Gutierrez, Juned Ahmed Ansari
Book Image

Web Penetration Testing with Kali Linux - Third Edition

By: Gilberto Najera-Gutierrez, Juned Ahmed Ansari

Overview of this book

Web Penetration Testing with Kali Linux - Third Edition shows you how to set up a lab, helps you understand the nature and mechanics of attacking websites, and explains classical attacks in great depth. This edition is heavily updated for the latest Kali Linux changes and the most recent attacks. Kali Linux shines when it comes to client-side attacks and fuzzing in particular. From the start of the book, you'll be given a thorough grounding in the concepts of hacking and penetration testing, and you'll see the tools used in Kali Linux that relate to web application hacking. You'll gain a deep understanding of classicalSQL, command-injection flaws, and the many ways to exploit these flaws. Web penetration testing also needs a general overview of client-side attacks, which is rounded out by a long discussion of scripting and input validation flaws. There is also an important chapter on cryptographic implementation flaws, where we discuss the most recent problems with cryptographic layers in the networking stack. The importance of these attacks cannot be overstated, and defending against them is relevant to most internet users and, of course, penetration testers. At the end of the book, you'll use an automated technique called fuzzing to identify flaws in a web application. Finally, you'll gain an understanding of web application vulnerabilities and the ways they can be exploited using the tools in Kali Linux.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Title Page
Copyright and Credits
Dedication
Packt Upsell
Contributors
Preface
Index

Scanning – probing the target


The penetration test needs to be conducted in a limited timeframe, and the reconnaissance phase is the one that gets the least amount of time. In a real-world penetration test, you share the information gathered during the reconnaissance phase with the client and try to reach a consensus on the targets that should be included in the scanning phase.

At this stage, the client may also provide you with additional targets and domains that were not identified during the reconnaissance phase, but they will be included in the actual testing and exploitation phase. This is done to gain maximum benefit from the test by including the methods of both black hat and white hat hackers, where you start the test as would a malicious attacker, and as you move forward, additional information is provided, which yields an exact view of the target.

Once the target server hosting the website is determined, the next step involves gathering additional information such as the operating...